Google Snags Contextual Ad Co. for $140M

ADOTAS – Dissatisfied with merely ruling the Net in the U.S., Google has snapped up Russian contextual advertising company ZAO Begun for $140 million. The Internet titan snagged the company from U.K.-based Rambler Media, which owns a 50.1% stake in Begun.

(Rambler bought the remaining stake from Bannatyne Limited and then sold the whole kit and caboodle to Google). Rambler reported that it will likely garner $50 million from the transaction and will use the funds to acquire companies itself.

Separately (kinda) Rambler will use Google AdSense for search and AdSense for content services.

The contextual advertising market is booming: it’s mushroomed by about two and half times since 2006; it’s currently worth about $225 billion.

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